The Facebook Open Graph Search is a very powerful tool that Facebook rolled out in 2014.  Yes – it tells you so much information- even more than you probably need to know about Granny 🙂

This search function has the potential to give marketers and business owners great insight into their target market and also find things they may have not thought to look into in the researching phase of finding people in a market.

We are going to dive into what exactly the open search graph tool is and how you can use it to your advantage.

What Is The Graph Tool?

First of all, the open graph search tool is located at the top of Facebook and it’s the search box you would use if you were finding a friend or a page:

This tool is designed to search Facebook but it is different than any other search box we are used to seeing online.

Here’s what I mean:

Instead of doing a search for a company like Microsoft, the approach is a bit different. You would want to “ask” Facebook a question like:  “People who work at Microsoft”. In essence, we are asking Facebook questions as opposed to typing in search terms.

If we were a local business owner looking for people who like pizza in a local town, we might do a search for “People who live in [zip code] who like pizza (or tomato sauce, or cheese)”.

The search results bring up the exact people we are looking for.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to using the graph search tool.  Think about all of the information that Facebook allows a user to put in….

Here are just some…

• marital status
• location (past and present)
• relationship status
• sexual orientation
• gender
• languages
• education
• employment
• interests
• children

….the list goes on and on.  You can target people based on their exact precise interest….it almost seems illegal but it’s completely legitimate and perfectly fine to use this information.

Of course, you need to realize that not everyone on Facebook puts in every single bit of information about themselves, but in a basic targeted search, you can usually find what you are looking for if your niche is broad enough.

Open Graph Search Tool Top 3 Advantages

Advantage 1: Filter Results

The beauty of the open graph search is that you can type in a question and the people who come up don’t necessarily have to be connected to you.

Once you’ve gotten your basic results from the initial question that you pose in the search box, you can then search even deeper in your results using the filter on the right hand side.

Advantage 2: Getting Laser Targeted Results

Another advantage is that you can get laser targeted results.

For example, If I wrote Vampire novels, I can search for “People who like Rachel Caine and L.J. Smith” (these are authors of vampire books).

Chances are, if people like BOTH of these authors, there’s a good chance they are HUGE fans of vampire novels. I can then message those people (not spamming them) and make a connection that may eventually lead them to be my customer in the future.

Advantage 3: Find the “Unknown”

This is a great advantage! Facebook allows you to do searches within searches!

Here’s what I mean:

Let’s say you were researching an audience and wanted to find more about what those people like.

Well, you can do a search like:

“Pages liked by people who like [your keyword]”

The results that come up might be very interesting to you because it may show you pages and other keywords and ideas you might not have even thought of to search for!

This is an extremely useful researching tool if anything at all!

Why Would You Use The Open Graph Search Tool?

Now that we know the advantages of using this tool – you may be still wondering why one would use it? It’s simple…if you want to make connections with people with the same or similar interests as you, then using the open graph search tool is a great place to start!

The connections that you make can be potential friends, business partners / associates, potential customers and followers.

This search capability makes it so easy for people to find ANYONE in any aspect of business or personal life.

For example, if I was selling dog products in a specific location, I can say something like “People who like dogs and live in [city name]. You can keep drilling down to find the exact people you are looking for.

On the flip side, if you want to be found when people search for the business that you cater to, make sure that you have your entire profile filled out so that when it comes to other people searching for your kind of business, your page will come up in the results! Also work on getting more and more fans.  The next thing you know people will want to find people who are following you!

Suggested Open Graph Search Terms

Here are some useful search terms that might help you with your research in finding connections:

• Pages liked by people who like [keyword]
• People who like [keyword] and [keyword]
• Pages liked by people who like [keyword] and [keyword]
• Favorite interests of people who like [keyword]
• Groups of people who like [keyword]
• Pages liked by people over the age of [age] who like [keyword]
• People who like [keyword] and live in [city, zip code]

There are so many more searches you can do and so many different combinations of searches that you can pinpoint by doing different variations.

Please comment below and add your favorite open graph search terms!